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Mário
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Billy Woodberry (born 1950) is well known for his close involvement with the Black independent film movement known as the L.A. Rebellion, which flourished from the late 1960s to the ‘90s. He took filmmaking at UCLA alongside figures including Charles Burnett, Julie Dash and Haile Gerima. Before that, he was a Masters candidate in the Latin American Studies department, studying history and political science – but was inspired by the screenings of Cuban films to change his course. His debut feature, Bless Their Little Hearts (1984), addressed specific social issues but also delved into “big problems – massive unemployment, the difficulty of male-female relationships, the maintenance of the family – which seem to me universal.” His subsequent work includes And When I Die I Won’t Stay Dead (2016). His influences range from Soviet cinema of the 1920s to Jean-Luc Godard, and the writings of Richard Wright. Woodberry has lived in Lisbon since 2018; it is there he made Mário. Are even the best and brightest revolutionary movements doomed to inevitable compromise, betrayal and failure? This question haunts this documentary biography of Angolan-born Mário Pinto de Andrade (1928-1990), a key figure in African independence struggles – not to be confused with Brazil’s Mário de Andrade (1893-1945), author of Macunaíma (1928, filmed 1969). Told in a direct, informative style, combining present-day interviews, still photos and archival footage, Mário eschews excessive dramatisation and sentimentality. Woodberry brings a pan-African sensibility to the subject, matching de Andrade’s own deeply held convictions. The film is constructed on an elegant, mosaic structure, delving, in turn, into the from, with and about Andrade. Mário returns us to an idealistic time when revolution was considered in an international way – not as hostage to nationalist ideologies. Beyond the rich history it recounts, Mário is notable for its interwoven portrait of other central figures of those times (including Agostinho Neto, Amilcar Cabral and Mário’s Catholic priest brother Joaquim), and the glimpses of filmmakers, beloved of today’s cinephiles, who were an integral part of it all: Andrade’s wife Sarah Maldoror (Sambizanga, 1972) and Chris Marker. Don’t miss the final moment when Andrade, asked about the fate of revolutions, theorises brilliantly … and then beams a radiantly ironic smile. © Adrian Martin November-December 2023 |
